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THE world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been acquitted more than 50 years after he was sentenced.
Former boxer Iwao Hakamada, 88, was jailed in 1968 for quadruple murder and has spent decades waiting to be executed.
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But today, a Japanese court has ruled Hakamada was not guilty in a retrial – reversing an earlier wrongful conviction after decades on death row.
Most of his time behind bars was spent in solitary confinement, in fear of execution.
He spent a total of 48 years in prison – with more than 45 of them on death row.
Hakamada’s acquittal by the Shizuoka District Court makes him the fifth death-row convict to be found not guilty in a retrial in postwar Japanese criminal justice.
Presiding judge, Koshi Kunii, said the court acknowledged multiple fabrications of evidence and that Hakamada was not the culprit.
Hakamada was convicted of murder in the 1966 killing of a company manager and three of his family members, and setting a fire to their central Japan home.
He was sentenced to death in 1968, but was not executed due to lengthy appeals and the retrial process.
It took 27 years for the top court to deny his first appeal for retrial.
His second appeal for a retrial was filed in 2008 by his sister Hideko Hakamada, now 91.
The court finally ruled in his favor in 2023, paving the way for the latest retrial that began in October.
Hakamada was released from prison in 2014 when a court ordered a retrial based on new evidence that suggested his conviction may have been based on fabricated accusations by investigators.
After his release, Hakamada served his sentence at home because his frail health and age made him a low risk for escape.
At a final hearing at the Shizuoka court in May before today’s decision, prosecutors again demanded the death penalty.
It triggered criticism from rights groups that prosecutors were trying to prolong the trial.
During the investigation that followed his arrest, Hakamada initially denied the accusations, then confessed. He later said he was forced to confess under violent interrogation by police.
A major point of contention was five pieces of blood-stained clothing that investigators claimed Hakamada wore during the crime and hid in a tank of fermented soybean paste, or miso.
The clothes were found more than a year after his arrest.
A Tokyo High Court ruling in 2023 acknowledged scientific experiments that clothing soaked in miso for more than a year turns too dark for bloodstains to be spotted, noting a possible fabrication by investigators.
Defense lawyers and earlier retrial decisions said the blood samples did not match Hakamadas DNA, and trousers prosecutors submitted as evidence were too small for Hakamada.
Supporters say Hakamadas nearly half-century detention has taken a toll on his mental health.
His sister Hideko Hakamada has devoted around half of her life to win his innocence.
Before Thursday’s ruling, she said she was in a never-ending battle.
She said: “It is so difficult to get a retrial started.
“Not just Iwao, but I’m sure there are other people who have been wrongly accused and crying.
“I want the criminal law revised so that retrials are more easily available.”
Japan and the United States are the only two countries in the Group of Seven advanced nations that retain capital punishment.
A survey by the Japanese government showed an overwhelming majority of the public support executions.
Executions are carried out in secrecy in Japan and prisoners are not informed of their fate until the morning they are hanged.
In 2007, Japan began disclosing the names of those executed and some details of their crimes, but disclosures are still limited.
The longest-serving death row inmates
SOME of the longest-serving death row inmates in the world have spent decades awaiting execution, either due to legal appeals, delays, or changes in the legal status of their sentences.
Here are some examples:
Gary Alvord (USA): Held on death row for over 39 years before dying of natural causes in 2013, Alvord was one of the longest-serving death row inmates in the United States. He was sentenced to death in 1974 in Florida for a triple murder, but his execution was delayed due to legal and mental health issues.
Iwao Hakamada (Japan): Hakamada spent over four decades on death row in Japan, since 1968, before being released after a court ruled that there was a possibility he was wrongfully convicted. Hakamada, a former boxer, was sentenced to death for a quadruple murder, with his case now one of the most famous in Japan for wrongful convictions.
Raymond Riles (USA): Riles holds the record for being one of the longest-serving death row inmates in the US, having been on death row in Texas for over 45 years (since 1976). His execution has been delayed due to issues related to his mental competency.
David Carpenter (USA): Known as the “Trailside Killer,” Carpenter has been on death row in California since 1984. He was convicted of multiple murders committed in the 1970s and early 1980s. Carpenter’s case has been delayed by California’s notoriously slow death penalty process and ongoing appeals, and he remains on death row at over 90 years old.
Ronald Sanford (USA): Sanford has been incarcerated in Indiana since he was 13 years old after being convicted of a double murder in 1987. Although not technically on death row, his life sentence without the possibility of parole has drawn comparisons to long-serving death row inmates. His case raises issues related to sentencing juveniles to life in prison.
